Corporate Counsel

Welcome to FindLaw's Corporate Counsel Center, a resource for internal and external corporate legal professionals. Here you will find legal articles and news relevant to your business, including Intellectual Property, Human Resources, Business Operations, Finance, Corporate Governance, and Litigation & Disputes. We also provide free access to a large updated archive of sample contracts from public companies spanning a wide variety of practice areas. This center's Law Library is a collection of articles written by legal professionals for businesses about many different areas of law.

Provided By
Solomon L. Wisenberg
I have been representing clients in white-collar and other federal criminal appeals for nearly 20 years, and it never ceases to amaze me how many people, laypersons and attorneys alike, are often mystified by this strange process. Why are federal criminal appeals so difficult to understand? Because federal appellate courts are deliberately designed to be cordoned off from criminal defendants, their attorneys, and the public at large. Federal appellate judges and their staffs work behind closed doors, except for the oral arguments that are held every week, month, or several times a year, depending on the court. Why the distance from the public? That's just one of the things I seek to explain in this article: "Federal Criminal Appeals: 10 Things You Should Know."

Provided By
Solomon L. Wisenberg
Just what is a proffer and what are the perils of entering into a proffer agreement (also known as a proffer letter) with the federal government? Proffer or "queen for a day" letters are written agreements between federal prosecutors and individuals under criminal investigation which permit these individuals to tell the government about their knowledge of crimes, with the supposed assurance that their words will not be used against them in any later proceedings. (The individuals can either be witnesses, subjects or targets of a federal investigation, although it is subjects and targets who provide most proffers.)

Provided By
Solomon L. Wisenberg
One of the most delicate tasks for the practitioner representing a witness or subject in a white-collar investigation is the tactical decision of whether to invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination during the grand jury phase. This question can be even more complex in the case of grand jury subpoenas for documents. Two recent decisions by the United States Supreme Court, Ohio v. Reiner, 532 U.S. 17, 121 S.Ct. 1252 (2001), and United States v. Hubbell, 530 U.S. 27 (2000), indicate that its current members share, for the most part, an expansive view of the Self-Incrimination Clause.